


ricotta and revelations

by strongbut



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Declarations Of Love, Extremely self-indulgent y'all, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 15:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14772360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strongbut/pseuds/strongbut
Summary: In which Vex and Percy fuck up a lasagna (separately) and snuggle (together).





	ricotta and revelations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vitamind20](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vitamind20/gifts).



> this takes place in the same universe as [foxglove and radishes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14636502/chapters/33829131) by the incomparable jamie. everyone read that asap because it's really truly wonderful and jamie's keyleth is truly perfect.
> 
> basically tho, vex works at a nonprofit thus the board of directors meeting. percy is a student. they aren't in love yet in jamie's fic but i sped things up because i'm self-indulgent.

Somehow Vex always ends up volunteering to bring food. She’s not even a fucking board member but she _is_ required to attend the monthly board meetings, which are always at 7:30 pm, and the week before _someone_ always sends a pathetic e-mail about how they’ll be going straight from another meeting without time for dinner and maybe someone can help? And Vex, gritting her teeth and yet unable to stop her compulsion to be helpful, will _always_ reply that oh, it’s no problem at all and she’ll be happy to bring food.

And the board of directors is rich, like filthy fucking rich, so there’s no way she’s showing up with a bag of Chinese take-out or a microwave pizza. So every month she spends an hour browsing the Martha Stewart website for an appropriately classy recipe and about five hours trying to whisk lemon mayonnaise or something, probably on the verge of tears, probably covered in five kinds of French cheese that cost more than her food budget for the year.

This month she’s decided on lasagna because she makes an excellent baked ziti and it can’t be _that_ much different. 

Surprise! It is very different.

Vex has ricotta under her fingernails and is trying not to sniffle onto anything she will eventually have to feed other people. It is almost three in the morning and the sauce is both oily and bland, and the pasta somehow fell apart in her hands. Everything is wrong. She is overtired and smells like garlic and she wants nothing more than to dump her mistake in the garbage and crawl into bed. 

Because she is Vex, she will not do that. She takes a few moments to cry into a dishtowel, very quietly because Percy is sleeping and his thesis is really stressing him out right now so he really needs the sleep and besides, this is her fault because she’s a stupid people-pleaser who never learned how to cook anything more complicated than chicken soup. 

She’s hysterical enough that is takes her a moment to hear footsteps pad down the hallway. She stands very still and hopes he’ll turn into the bathroom. No such luck. The footsteps continue into the kitchen and pause by the door. 

“I’ve been chopping onions,” she cries into the dishtowel with as much cheer as she can muster.

“Where are the onions?” Percy’s voice is bland, almost disinterested, like it’s a purely philosophical question. Vex turns around and blinks. He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, biting his lower lip. His looks very scrawny in his plaid boxers. She gives a shaky exaggerated smile.

“In the sauce, darling. Where else would they be?” 

Percy raises a single eyebrow and then sighs, his shoulders relaxing. “Let me order something for the meeting.”

“No,” says Vex, because she’s stubborn and has already poured too much money into this stupid meal and besides, she hates the idea of being _that girl_ with the (sort of, not really) rich boyfriend, the girl who uses her boyfriend’s money to fix her own fuck-ups, the girl who… She clenches the dishtowel in her hands and tries not to grimace.

“Isn’t it better for your career that you arrive at work well-rested?” 

This is a good point. Still: “No.”

Percy frowns and takes a moment to formulate his next move, then screws up his face and fixes her with his most mournful, wide-eyed stare. “Come to bed, Vex. I don’t like sleeping alone.”

While patently untrue, as Vex is a known stealer of blankets, she is nevertheless touched. She feels her resolve ebbing. 

“Darling, let me finish this and I’ll join you.” And she gives him _her_ most pathetic face, the one she gives Trinket when she has to lure him into the vet’s office.

A muscle in Percy’s jaw twitches. “But dearest, that could be hours and hours. I’ll have something nice catered and you can pay me back whenever you like.”

“As long as you aren’t buying me something. Because you know how I feel about that,” Vex says accusingly. She has a strong urge to brandish her wooden spoon at him.

“You love gifts,” Percy says, and he looks so genuinely dumbfounded that Vex takes pity on him and broaches the distance between them, wrapping her arms around his neck. He automatically takes hold of her waist. She likes that. How good they are at moving their bodies to fit each other like puzzle pieces, how unthinking their little gestures have become.

“There’s a difference, darling. There are gifts for me, like that lovely necklace, and you know I love it but it’s not something I would ever buy for myself. That’s why it’s a gift. But then there’s… you buying things for me I can figure out myself. Like this, or if you paid my rent or my car insurance. Does that make sense?”

Because he is very really very smart, Percy nods and presses his lips to her forehead. Vex is close enough to smell him, to smell his shampoo ( _her_ shampoo, really; they showered together this morning) and his deodorant and that soft muskiness of sleep and suddenly, she is so, so much more tired than she was even a moment before. 

“What if it’s not money?” Percy speaks in almost a whisper and Vex tugs his neck down so his lips almost brush up against her ear. “For example, you’d never hire a maid but I do the dishes sometimes.”

This is true. Percy, who is horrendously messy when left to his own devices, treats her apartment something like a sacred temple, dutifully removing his shoes at the door and making the bed every morning with a look of deep concentration. 

_Still._ While a compelling prospect, Vex remains suspicious. Percy makes an excellent cup of tea and very mediocre scrambled eggs, but Vex doubts he can handle a whole lasagna. 

“You have studying to do,” Vex responds primly. 

“I’ve done everything I can do until my advisor corrects my proofs,” he hums against her.

“What if you fuck it up?” She asks, moving her hand to scratch the back of his neck and watching delightedly as he smiles, practically purring.

“I won’t fuck it up,” Percy says, though he does sound very distracted. Vex lowers her hand to his chest, fingers tiptoeing down as far as she can reach.

“If you fuck up my lasagna, I’ll kill you,” she warns, but her resolve is fading. Percy’s warm against her and she knows her bed is even warmer. She doesn’t know if she wants Percy exactly, wants him _that way,_ or just wants sleep, ideally with Percy curled up behind her, maybe tightening his grip on her waist in his sleep the way he does sometimes, as if even dreaming he knows he wants to be close and it’s _so_ endearing, and Vex wants it _so_ badly.

“Please don’t fuck up my lasagna,” Vex pleads. “I am putting my faith in you, Percival. Do not fuck up my lasagna.” 

“I promise not to fuck up your lasagna,” he says, though he’s already begun half-dragging her to the bedroom, careful not to step on Trinket’s paws as he follows them and Vex can’t help but laugh. Part of it’s the lack of sleep and part of it is pure giddy joy to have someone to make her stupid lasagna and pull her to bed. Someone who gets her weirdness about money and has broad shoulders and long fingers and funny white hair. She’s so happy to have Percy. 

They spend a few minutes kissing lazily in bed and when Percy’s slips his hand underneathVex’s underwear and she shakes her head, he doesn’t even pause. He just scoots over to the side of the bed and pulls back the covers for her. 

“I’m so sleepy, Percy,” Vex says by way of apology, grasping at his t-shirt and trying to pull him back to her. “I promise you can touch me as much as you want after I’ve slept.”

“It’s fine, dear. I’ll bring the lasagna to your office tomorrow, alright?” He cards his fingers through her hair and _oh_ , Vex loves him so much.

So she says so. 

“I love you Percy,” she sighs into his collarbone, and she knows it’s true because she isn’t at all nervous to say it. She knows he won’t laugh or use her sentimentality against her, and it’s hardly even a surprise when he responds in the affirmative. 

“Oh Vex, I love you too.” She can feel his heart pound in his chest and she wishes she had the energy to pull herself up to see the probably adorable blush spreading across his cheeks. 

“Good.”

She’s halfway asleep when Percy, deathly serious, whispers in her ear: “I really do love you.” Vex yawns and kisses the closest bit of skin she can reach, a bit of brown chest hair poking up from the collar of his shirt. 

“I know, darling. I really love you as well. Terribly. Extremely terribly. It’s very distracting, and knowing you love me back is only going to make it worse.”

“Thus the lasagna?”

Vex kicks him under the blankets. “Fuck you. Fuck you for turning my lasagna failure against me when I’m feeling vulnerable. You’re awful. I hate you.”

“No you don’t,” says Percy. He’s almost smug, like he's starting to get the hang of this.

“No… I actually don’t hate you. I love you.” She feels a bit addicted to saying it. 

“I love you too, but I’m going to have to wake up early to make your lasagna so go to sleep,” he mumbles. Vex laughs and pushes him onto his back so she can curl up, face pressed into the spot between his shoulder and neck, arm flung across his stomach. He lets her arrange him, even tucks his arm around her back so he can scratch that spot he knows she likes.

It should be illegal to be this happy. There should be laws against it. Or something. Vex’s thoughts become more and more abstract as she slips into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

 

 

Percy fucks up the lasagna. He refuses to tell her how he fucked it up but somehow Keyleth was involved and they were both deeply traumatized by the whole experience. At one point he found it necessary removed the batteries from the fire alarm. Vex finds them stuffed in the back of the spice cabinet and decides that love means not questioning your boyfriend’s terrible cooking adventures. 

Besides, Percy brings in a magnificent lasagna and even goes through the trouble of putting it in her pyrex and covering it with tin foil so it looks homemade. He also fucks her brains out that night with her stockings hanging around her knees and her pencil skirt hiked up to her stomach. So it evens out. _Quid pro quo_ , but not in a skeevy way. Just, you know, two people who love each other doing each other a favor. 

Just like she edits his thesis because he has a real problem with overusing commas, and he fixes her watch when the minute hand stops moving, and she takes his sister shopping for a nice dress to wear to his graduation, and when he gets very drunk after his graduation, she rubs his back while he pukes. He does the same for her when she insists that week-old Chinese food is still good and gets food poisoning, and he only says “I told you so” like three times. 

All in all, it works out.


End file.
